Spotlight

Love Hurts

This mediocre and thoroughly forgettable action-comedy will, one hopes, be but a bump on the road of Ke Huy Quan’s big-screen resurgence.

Perla

Alexandra Makarova’s elegant, psychologically complex Cold War drama plumbs the inner dislocation of exile, and the poisonous workings of tyranny.

Wondrous is the Silence of My Master

Ivan Salatic’s magnificently moody, intelligent and doom-laden vision of Montenegrin freedom fighting and exile questions the formation and undoing of national myth.

Dog Man

This adaptation of the popular children’s-book series offers up hilarious gags and absurdist plotting, but a story this silly deserves more energetic pacing.

Presence

Steven Soderbergh’s effectively low-key chiller puts an already-dysfunctional family into a haunted house.

Wolf Man

Leigh Whannell’s moody monster movie features gripping performances and effective jolts before running out of steam without fully pursuing its own ideas and metaphors.

The Illusion

Filmmaker Roberto Andò combines a wary humanism with expert storytelling to expose the anti-heroic truth about Garibaldi’s 1860 invasion of Sicily to overthrow the Bourbon monarchy and unite Italy, though the comic subplots running through the film tend to be distracting and hard to digest.

Alonso Duralde’s Top 11 Films of 2024

Our chief US film critic’s annual compilation of the year’s finest, including war, death, tennis, queer takes on pop culture, and hundreds of beavers.

Mufasa: The Lion King

Better than a CG-animated prequel to a remake has any right to be, but director Barry Jenkins’ time and effort could surely be better applied elsewhere.

Kraven the Hunter

This absurd (and violent) Spider-Man spinoff plays it so straight that it’s quite frequently hilarious, whether or not that was the intent.

Y2K

Kyle Mooney’s teen disaster comedy ‘Y2K’ starts out promisingly enough before blowing 2000 opportunities for thrills, laughs, or insight.

Nosferatu

Exquisite filmcraft and committed performances, yet Robert Eggers’ take on the silent-horror classic feels more like an adoring tribute than a rethinking or reimagining.

Can Africa Hope for an Oscar?

Nine films have been sent to the 2025 Oscars by African countries. Will any one get a nomination?

Moana 2

Shares most of the strengths and weaknesses of its predecessor, although at this point, novelty has sailed off to the seven seas. Kids who know the first movie by heart will delight in a second helping.

Wicked: Part I

This adaptation of the Broadway musical – the first half, anyway – offers a lot of craft but not enough magic.

Gladiator II

Ridley Scott displays his prodigious gifts for violence and camp in this Roman sequel, but there’s a lot of filler.

Red One

This search-and-rescue tale of a kidnapped Santa Claus doesn’t reinvent the action-movie wheel, but it’s a fun spin on holiday tropes.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

A cadre of feral siblings teach a small town the true meaning of Christmas in a rare faith-based film that doesn’t oversell its message.

Here

Robert Zemeckis’ fixed-camera observation of the passage of time is a slick and profoundly shallow movie aching for depth.

Venom: The Last Dance

Nothing means anything in the conclusion of Tom Hardy’s comic-book trilogy, which makes it either a complete waste of time or a superhero movie in its purest form.

Exhibiting Forgiveness

In his feature-film debut, painter Titus Kaphar exhibits his talents as a visual artist, if not as a screenwriter.

Saturday Night

Jason Reitman’s print-the-legend look behind the scenes of the birth of a legendary comedy TV fixture succeeds on its breathless “let’s put on a show” energy.

White Bird

This platitude-heavy infomercial for kindness benefits from strong performances and handsome production design.

The Last Showgirl

Former ‘Baywatch’ star Pamela Anderson tests her indie art-house credentials in Gia Coppola’s ‘The Last Showgirl’, a slight but engaging portrait of an ageing Las Vegas dancer facing the existential terror of midlife redundancy.

Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness

Actor turned director Johnny Depp pays indulgent tribute to bohemian artist Amedeo Modigliani, and to himself, in the badly misjudged and barely coherent biopic ‘Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness’.

The Red Virgin

An imaginatively engrossing essay on feminism and motherhood, Paula Ortiz’s taken-from-history ‘The Red Virgin’ features an unforgettable Najwa Nimri as a stage mother out of hell, who sees her brilliant 16-year-old daughter as a sculpture she has created to change the world in 1930’s Spain.

Bound in Heaven

Doomed lovers fight for their right to party in the melodramatic but visually impressive romantic thriller ‘Bound in Heaven’, a strong debut feature from Chinese writer-director Huo Xin.

Conclave

Oscar-winner Edward Berger’s papal thriller is flashy, pulpy, yet empty entertainment.

The Killer’s Game

An action-comedy that contains neither, this generic exercise will remain forgotten as Dave Bautista’s star continues to rise.

Transformers One

Lore-crazed fans will devour this animated prequel that is, at the very least, slightly more intentionally funny than the Michael Bay live-action franchise.

The Wild Robot

Animator Chris Sanders concocts a sweet fable about love, parenting, and finding your own path.

Joker: Folie à Deux

Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips return to their billion-dollar killer-clown origin story with the music-stuffed, lavishly staged but dramatically flawed sequel ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’.

Wolfs

It takes the combined power of George Clooney and Brad Pitt to maintain interest in this paper-thin farce about rival crime-scene cleaners.

The Order

White-supremacist violence in the US is an evergreen subject, but this docudrama about an FBI takedown of a racist cell plays like countless other feds-versus-terrorists thrillers.

Babygirl

Nicole Kidman delivers another emotionally and physically fearless performance in Halina Reijn’s provocative, kink-themed coming-out story.

Maria

Pablo Larraín’s third portrait of the private pain of a public woman exists most effectively as a platform for Angelina Jolie’s diva-as-diva performance.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Tim Burton’s energetically grotesque sequel proves you can go home again, even when that home is haunted.

Blink Twice

Zoë Kravitz makes an impressive directorial debut with a twisty, topical thriller in the Jordan Peele/Ira Levin vein.

TFV is On Point with Audio Film Reviews

The Film Verdict (TFV) launches the industry’s first trade audio film reviews with THE FILM VERDICT ON POINT (TFV On Point), a new podcast series that will turn TFV film reviews into audio broadcasts, hosted by Sarah Vianney.

Alien: Romulus

Fede Alvarez returns to the well of the original 1979 Ridley Scott hit while adding a few space-screams of his own.

Cuckoo

This Alpine resort has everything: mood, creepiness, mood… and… well, that’s about it.

Trap

Too few surprises and too many endings makes for a tension-free thriller from M. Night Shyamalan, despite Josh Hartnett’s best efforts.

Deadpool & Wolverine

Ryan Reynolds fires off quips and bullets with equal precision, but both the meta-comedy and the exaggerated violence wear thin before the film’s denouement.

Twisters

This 28-years-later sequel delivers the weather-porn thrills of its predecessor, while managing to be the tiniest bit less silly when the actors open their mouths.

Fly Me to the Moon

The space race is back in the peppy, bouncy ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, but a sparky face-off between NASA launch director Channing Tatum and marketing wizard Scarlett Johansson can’t disguise an outdated feeling.

Despicable Me 4

Even die-hard Minions fans may come away disappointed from this half-hearted fourquel.

A Quiet Place: Day One

Not much here that the earlier two films didn’t already establish more effectively; its only depth comes from Lupita Nyong’o’s intuitive lead performance.

The Bikeriders

Writer-director Jeff Nichols relies more on mood than narrative to capture the rebellious spirit of 1960s biker gangs.

Inside Out 2

This Pixar sequel brings its protagonist into puberty and examines, with humor and poignancy, the complicated process of building an identity.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence radiate real “I’d rather be playing golf” energy in this fourth entry of a played-out franchise.